


bullying: a tactical guidebook for very tired hotel owners

by gayprophets



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor, accidental hero worship, agent stern gets bullied by mama (and the lodge but mostly mama), agent stern is a bastard who slowly gets bullied into being less of a bastard, amnesty lodge as family - Freeform, fuck cops, starts just after water monster arc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 08:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21071843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayprophets/pseuds/gayprophets
Summary: It's only later, while lying in bed that night mulling over his day that Stern realizes exactly what the butterflies and other assorted emotions mean. He respects Madeline Cobb, and wants her to respect him. He wants to impress her. He wants her to be proud of him. His actions and feelings could, in the right light, be considered hero worship."Oh my God," he says at the ceiling, skin crawling with horror. "No. Fuck no. No way."-bullying your little twerp fbi agent into quitting his job for fun and profit (so you dont all get arrested and/or experimented on by the knockoff, unsexy version of the X-Files.)





	bullying: a tactical guidebook for very tired hotel owners

The first thing Stern notices as he heads downstairs from his room in the morning is all the quiet. Amnesty Lodge, he has found in his few days of staying here, is always bustling with activity, so the utter lack of chatter and movement immediately sets him on edge.

There’s nobody in the lobby. Scratch that, he realizes as he looks around - there’s one person there. The owner - Barclay, he’s pretty sure, although he’s been known to be terrible with names - is sitting at one of the tables holding an old corded phone that’s been moved off the front desk, his head down on the table, resting on his arms. There’s a composition notebook open in front of him along with several papers, and he has a pen tucked behind his ear.

“Good morning,” Stern says, and Barclay startles dramatically in the way one does when they thought they were alone in their home.

“Kitchen’s closed,” Barclay tells Stern quietly. He looks like he’s had a _ very _ long night, and not in the fun way. He’s haggard and unshaven, with dark, heavy bags under his eyes. His hair seems greyer, the lines in his face deeper. He’s wearing yesterday's clothes (rumpled) and still has in yesterday's braid (slackened and tangled) but with the additions of fuzzy plaid slippers and a bandana tied around his head to keep his hair back. “If you need breakfast,” Barclay continues, “I’d recommend Ren’s Diner downtown, it’s on Main Street, y’can’t miss it. Owner’s a _ lovely _ lady, but Cafe Rudaí Milis has got better coffee if that’s what you’re after. Ren’s Diner has _ much _ better service, though, and food.”

Stern blinks, trying to formulate a response with his pre-caffeine brain and struggling.

“Or Jolly Pirate Doughnuts,” Barclay adds absent-mindedly after a few moments. “That’s where most everyone went, to be honest, but if I ate that much sugar in one sitting I might just die.” Barclay does not sound like he’s _ firing on all cylinders, _ as Stern’s mother says. If Stern’s being honest, he sounds rather upset in the way that people do when they aren’t used to being upset around others.

“Are you… okay?” Stern asks, coming to a halt a few feet from him. Barclay sets his head back down on the table with a bang.

“Mama - the owner - got into an accident last night and I have to call the insurance company because she’s in the hospital and they’re always _bastards_ about it and they put me on _hold_ and they’re playing the_ fucking _Girl From Ipanema,” Barclay says into the table, all in one breath, then picks his head back up and mimes chucking the phone across the room. Sure enough, Stern can hear the soothingly sultry sax noodles echoing from the speaker. “I’ve been on hold for _half an hour!”_

“Wow,” Stern says, eloquently, mentally shifting Barclay over from the category of _ Owner _ and into the category of _ Chef??? _

“Also, I didn’t sleep _ at all _ last night because I was at the hospital until almost six in the morning because she had to get surgery and I don’t sleep when I’m stressed and they make those chairs for people who aren’t six and a half feet tall,” Barclay admits, and yeah, Stern could tell.

“Is she okay?” he asks.

Barclay waves a hand. “Not right now, but eventually, probably. Modern medicine is a miracle. She’ll probably end up needin’ crutches and then a cane for a while though. No way to tell for sure yet.” His mouth twists and he chews on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “She had some internal bleeding, but she’ll pull through.”

Stern whistles softly, because _ damn. _ “What happened?” he asks.

Barclay’s face darkens. “I don’t know, but I’m going to _ find out,” _ he rumbles. The pacifying sax noodleage suddenly cuts off into a real human voice and Barclay practically slams the handset back into his face. “Yes, _ hi _ there!” he says in the brightest customer service voice Stern has ever heard, the aggressive politeness just about smacking him in the face, and the switch is so abrupt that Stern actually twitches. 

“Can I make you some coffee?” he asks quietly, and Barclay nods aggressively at him and mouths _ please, _ rubbing a hand against his chest. Stern scoots off to the kitchen because Barclay _ sounds _ perfectly pleasant to the person on the other end of the line, but his expression is spelling out gruesome murder, and Stern doesn’t particularly want to witness whatever is about to go down. He does, however, want to get on _ someone's _ good side around here, and the chef seems like the best place to start, and he’s not above bribery.

Or blackmail. He doesn’t normally like to bully people, he knows his damn tactics, he’s not an idiot. Start with no cost guilt tripping, slowly escalate until you use more relationship breaking techniques: blackmail, physical intimidation, threats. Ned Chicane just has some near supernatural ability to get on his very last nerve in mere moments, and he has lost his temper. He’s tired of getting pushed around by folks who don’t even have the decency to be up front about what they’re doing.

When Stern exits the kitchen - two mugs in hand - Barclay is being sweetly mean to the person he’s talking to, staring blankly ahead. He doesn’t seem to notice Stern until he places the mug almost directly under his nose, and he jumps, then smiles. _Thank you,_ he mouths (and _signs,_ Stern realizes, and files away that knowledge for later) then goes back to the conversation. “That wasn’t what we were told _last_ time -,” he starts in the kind of voice that Stern last heard when his sister, Angelica, got suspended in high school and his mother asked her to _just_ _come here a minute, sweetheart, I want to talk with you._

Stern grimaces at his tone and takes a sip of his own coffee. Both mugs were hand thrown, glazed a beautiful deep green, a thin, slanted signature of _ M.D.C. _ stamped into the bottom. He goes to drink the rest of the coffee on the front porch, looking out across the driveway, birds shrilling in the pines.

When he comes back inside to put his mug into the dishwasher, Barclay is still at the table, although he looks much less angry and more plain old _ tired. _

“Yes, I understand,” he’s saying, followed by a few more vacant _ uh-huhs. _ Finally his spine straightens. “Yes, exactly. Thank you, Ma’am, you have a _ wonderful _ day now.”

He hangs up with perhaps a little more force than is strictly necessary, then rubs his eyes, making a sound like the air being released from a balloon.

“I,” Barclay says finally, back in his normal voice as he pushes himself up, “Am going to bed. If I’m not alive again by dinner go to Gino’s. The Little Dipper has good wings but terrible service, whatever you do, _ don’t _ go there.” 

“Do you just know all the places in town?” Stern asks, trying to be friendly, make him laugh a little, continue to loosen up their oddly strained relationship. This is probably the most relaxed interaction they've had thus far, and he wants to make it count. It's hard to pry information from someone who looks at you like you're pointing a gun at them. Barclay stands up and cracks his back. 

“Absolutely,” he says, sweeping the papers back neatly into the notebook, then tucking it under his arm. “Thank you for the coffee,” he says.

“You’re welcome,” Stern says. Barclay puts the phone back on the reception desk and heads up the set of stairs on the other side of the lobby with a wrong handed salute. He left the coffee on the table, mostly untouched.

Stern tries Jolly Pirate Doughnuts just to see what all the fuss is about, and runs into Aubrey Little and her two blonde cohorts, whom she immediately strong-arms out of the shop the second she makes eye contact with him, making a face like she smells something disgusting. He makes a mental note to corner her later, because she is _weird _ and _ rude. _ She has to know something, and he’s damn well going to get it out of her. 

When Stern meets Mama, two weeks later, she is most decidedly _ nothing _ like who he had expected.

**Author's Note:**

> idk when this will update! i just have a lot of thoughts about this concept and it's making me laugh a lot. you can find me at themlet dot tumblr dot com. comments and kudos appreciated.


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